My first GB team meeting

On Friday lunchtime me and my parents drove up to Sheffield for the GB team inaugural meeting. I was really excited and looking forward to meeting more of the team.

We stayed in the Holiday Inn andhad a meal in the restaurant as it was quite late when we arrived so we didn’t have time to go anywhere else.

Day 1:

The first part of the weekend was held in the Holiday Inn which mean’t I didn’t have to get up so early, but I still decided to go to bed early.

I woke up at half eight on Saturday morning and went down for breakfast – it was a buffet. I had hash browns, bacon and egg! After this we went straight to the conference room for the presentation. We sat in the 3rd row and got a pack of booklets and pages about climbers safety and climbing centres. We read through some of these before the talk started. The presentation began at around 10.00am and was very interesting and helpful. The main point I remembered was that there are certain drugs that you are not allowed to take before comps or in training because they can stay in your system for a long time and will be picked up on a drug test. If you take drugs it will result in you being banned from competing for 4 years! The types of drug are on the IFSC. web page which I am going to print out.

The next part of the day was at Awesome walls. We drove there and had lunch in the cafe. But after that we didn’t have much to do so my Dad belayed me on some routes. At 1.30pm we had a team fitness test. We did:

Dish hold for 2 minutes

Plank hold for 2 minutes

Press up’s for 1 minute

Sit up’s for 1 minute

Typewriters x 20

Pull up’s x 20

1 arm lock offs 15sec each arm

Some of these exercises were really difficult but it gave me some more idea’s for a new core and strength work out. I managed to complete dish, plank, press ups, sit ups, typewriters and pull ups. But the 1 arm lock offs were really difficult and I didn’t even manage 1 sec.

Once we completed all of the exercises we waited for the FMS screening, but I was told that I was too young as I am only in Girls C.

Tony Smith, the parents rep organised a meal at Nandos for anyone in the team who wanted to go. We went to this and I sat on a table with the other Junior team members, It was really nice to get to know the others better and I was glad I was sitting next to them rather than my parents.

Day 2:

After breakfast we gave Catrin and her mum a lift to Awesome walls for the second day. It was 10.00am when we arrived and my one to one with the GB team coaches Ian and Jon wasn’t until later on.

Kirsten , Abi and I decided to do some climbing while we were waiting for our one to ones. The routes were really good in Awesome walls and I recognised some from the competition routes from last year.

I enjoyed watching some of the older members of the GB team climbing some of the really hard route of the comp wall. One of these was an 8c!

At 1:30 we went into our one to one with Ian and Jon. In this meeting we talked about entering European competitions and this year I am going to enter at least two. Another thing we discussed was the trip with the GB team to Innsbruck, Imst and Arco. On this trip, my parents won’t be going so it will be just the coaches, the team and me. I am really looking forward to this and it will be amazing to climb on the same wall that will be used for the world cup in Arco later in the year.

Once we had finished talking to Ian and Jon I went to the Sports Psychologist to fill out a psychometric test. This was really quick, and as soon as it had finished the foot-person was ready to see me as well. He asked me to walk from one end on the room to the other which was hard because I was thinking about it too much. He also measured my legs and my right leg was longer than my left but he said the other one should catch up.

By this time is was about four o’clock and we had to wait about half an hour before the main medical test. For the test we had to fill in a form for medical conditions and have a blood test but this would be done by my GP at home in Cardiff. I had an eye test and a reflex test. She also weighed me and measured my height. I am 1.48m which is the average height for my age?!